The impact of regular school attendance will never be more keenly felt than during the summer exam season.
The 2024/25 school year’s GCSE and A Level exams are currently in full swing. But absences during the school year can have a surprising effect on attainment, with a recent Department for Education report finding that pupils who attended school nearly every day in Year 11 were almost twice as likely to achieve a Grade 5 in their English and Maths GCSEs, compared to those who only attended 90 to 95% of the time. This means that missing just 10 days of school cuts the likelihood of getting a strong pass by around 50%.
The Government’s full absence and attendance figures for the latest 2023/24 school year are out now. Despite showing a small improvement on the year before, the overall absence rate - the percentage of half-days missed for all pupils - still lingers well above pre-pandemic figures. One in five pupils were also labelled ‘persistently absent’, meaning they missed at least 10% of these half-day sessions.
Included with the Government’s attendance figures was the absence data for each state-funded secondary school in England. We’ve taken a closer look at those in the Derby City Council area - excluding special and private schools - to see how they fared when it came to pupils making the most of their education. We’ve only included those with absence rates below 8.5% - a fantastic achievement for any school communities.
Here were the 9 local secondary schools that made the cut:
1. Littleover Community School
At the top of the list is this local authority-maintained secondary school and sixth form in Littleover. It boasts a strong academic performance too, with a GCSEs-based Progress 8 score in the ‘above average’ band last year. In the 2023/24 school year, it had a low overall absence rate of just 5.97%. | Google
2. Landau Forte College
Another high-performing school, Landau Forte is a secondary academy and sixth form in the Little Chester area. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an overall absence rate of 6.09%. | Google
3. Derby Cathedral School
This is a fairly new Anglican secondary free school and sixth form in the city. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an overall absence rate of 7.38%. | Google
4. Chellaston Academy
This is a secondary academy and sixth form in Chellaston. In the 2023/24 school year, it had an overall absence rate of 7.53%. | Google